Can Howard Obliviate Haneef?

"Australia will not be apologising to Dr Haneef," Mr Howard told reporters in Sydney.

"Dr Haneef was not victimised and Australia's international reputation has not been harmed by this 'mis-start' to its new anti-terrorism laws."

Mr Howard said he supported the AFP and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews, who revoked Dr Haneef's visa earlier this month, just hours after a Brisbane court had granted him bail.

Despite the collapse of the case, Mr Andrews has refused to reinstate the visa unless the Indian national's lawyers successfully appeal against the decision in the Federal Court.

In a paid interview for the Nine Network's 60 Minutes last night, Dr Haneef said he was never a risk to Australia and would have dobbed in his relatives had he known they were plotting attacks in Britain.

But Mr Andrews was unmoved.

"Nothing that I saw in the interview with Dr Haneef changed my mind as to the suspicions and doubts that I have about the matter," he told ABC Radio today.

[paperpools interprets:

The man is a highly suspicious colour. In Australia, 'Let's go to the beach' is our happy-go-lucky motto. A real Australian goes to the beach and gets a tan. A prerequisite for getting a tan is not being brown in the first place! What legitimate reason could a man who is already brown have for coming to Australia?

The interview confirmed my earlier suspicions as to the brownness of the man; you just have to look at him to see that he would be out of place on a beach and could only want to come to the Best Country in the World to plant bombs. A real Australian would have suffered serious tan loss from 4 weeks in jail, and we would never do that to a man; if you look at Dr Haneef, you'll notice that he is the same colour now that he was when he went in. Australia is not going to apologise to a man who has no tan to maintain. No worries.]

Sydney Morning Herald